Good job! If you don't mind me asking. How many hives are they requesting and how many total hives do you have. Im curious cause some day I might want to go that route and wonder how big one has to be to start pollinating.

But unless your grower is producing melons alone in a desert, its fair to say that they will do as well as any other locality - after all, they aren't tying up too much time if there are limited blooms, and they more on to better/other sources.

The element that people tend to forget is pollen. And after last years contracts, the colonies that were on melons did considerably better than those in lesser forage. I believe that the pollen and mild nector source provided a pre-season stimulus that jump started the colonies. Sometimes your gains are down avenues you aren't considering.

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Good job! If you don't mind me asking. How many hives are they requesting and how many total hives do you have. Im curious cause some day I might want to go that route and wonder how big one has to be to start pollinating.

ThanksMike

I just have the 5 strong hives but its just a small field maybe 10 acres.

Location, location, location. Here, the truck farming pollination is usually at the tail end of the citrus bloom so the bees are already built up and thinking about swarming. Make nucs from the strong hives before you put them in. Don't take the queen! For good pollination they need to be still in a brood expansion mind set. They need room for the queen to lay so they want lots of pollen coming in to feed them with. Here, we feed them while on melons, cucumbers and squash. This is what the farmer is paying us for. You want the farmer to say he had more bloom set with your bees this year than in a long time. Course its a double edged sword, if he gets bad seed, fertilizer, etc., it can get blamed on poor bees. The going rate was $45-$50 a box this year.